Label Watch

For ten years, the German music enthusiast Stefan Winter headed up the small but respected JMT label-a.k.a. Jazz Music Today-and gave voice to left-of-conventional players such as Tim Berne, Paul Motian, Steve Coleman, and fellow musicians from Brooklyn such as Greg Osby and a young new singer named Cassandra Wilson. From that label’s ashes came…Read More

It’s quite a sight to see an owner of a record label strolling with one of those old-fashioned sandwich boards hanging from his shoulders advertising his label’s artists. But for New Orleans-based Basin Street Records owner Mark Samuels, who first experimented with this unique approach to advertising at the 1998 French Quarter Festival, it’s just…Read More

Say what you will about George Winston, the new age pianist whose simple style made him a star in the early ’80s and has continued to be his cash cow, even as many critics grew to love to hate his best-known, best-selling work. This much is true: Winston is one of music’s most avowed music…Read More

The cliché says that where you put your money is where your true passions lie. For Canadian Philip Barker, founder and president of Jazz Focus Records, it’s obvious that it’s the music that matters. “People sometimes ask why I started Jazz Focus,” he said from his office in Calgary, Alberta. “I could have invested my…Read More

Recordings on the British Naim label have several unique qualities, not the least of which is the company’s passion for capturing the essence of a performance on each release. According to Naim’s technical guru, Julian Vereker, who handles mastering, it’s the “human element” that is critical to him, which he defines as preserving the feel…Read More

Malandro Records president Rick Warm has found a cozy niche in Brazilian jazz, the seeds of which began in 1990 while he was in Brazil doing a college internship in international business. During those nine months, Warm pursued Brazilian music in his leisure time and learned to fluently speak the Portuguese language. “I met Rick…Read More

Jazz purists, begone. Smooth jazz operators, get outta town. Tone Center is not intended for your consumption. The central axiom here has to do with blowing, exerting chops in a manner unfit for the casual listener or those seeking acoustic sonorities. Apart from fusion reissues such as the recent series on Columbia/Legacy, fusion in the…Read More

Artists start their own labels for a multitude of reasons. Usually, it begins with sheer, blind idealism and frustration with the industry powers that be. For Phil Sheeran, a smooth jazz guitarist out of Los Angeles, the seeds were sown over a specific issue: ownership of master tapes. To hear him tell it, Sheeran started…Read More

Concord Jazz is now celebrating its 25th anniversary in 1998-three years after the label’s founder and prolific producer Carl Jefferson succumbed to cancer. It all began when Jefferson founded the Concord Jazz Festival in 1969, which led to the establishment of the label in 1973. And appropriately, when he died, Jefferson’s departure was marked by…Read More

“I have no interest in running a record company. That’s the last thing I want to do,” moans John Lurie, cult movie star, fashion plate, saxophonist and founder of the Lounge Lizards. “I just wanted to get my own stuff out, you know?” Granted, the Lounge Lizards’ music is neither radio-friendly nor easy to categorize,…Read More